


This Is Us Forever: Chloe Price's Grief

by ktao3



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Chloe's grief over William, Chloe's relationship with Joyce, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Other, Young Chloe Price
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5248475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktao3/pseuds/ktao3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloe's journey of grief over her father's death and the end of the family she had known since birth. There's a mention of Pricefield, but it's really about Chloe and Joyce. I love the San Francisco photo of William and Joyce you can see in their bedroom during the alternate timeline, and it was the main starting point for this exploration of grief and healing. </p><p>Part of me is like, who even wants to read this stuff? I guess we'll see : ) For everything, there is a time. Even examining the grief of fictional characters. It can be a good way to examine our own grieving.</p><p>It's amazing the wells of emotion you can find throughout this game, even on the fringes.</p><p>Please note: This was written before Before the Storm, so may not mesh with whatever shenanigans/traumas they have in store for us in that game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Us Forever: Chloe Price's Grief

Every morning after her father dies, 14-year-old Chloe Price wakes up in an ocean of grief. By the end of each day she has drowned in it again. There aren't strange casserole dishes and cakes made by old ladies who live down the block on the table anymore. All the things that filled the house right after her father died—people, and food, and flowers, and offers to help—now a few months later, they are all gone. Those things were emptied out, too, and the space they left just fills up with the grief that keeps flowing out of her and over her.

Even her mother is gone. At least the version she had grown up with—a beautiful woman smiling and laughing and warm. In her place is someone sad and steely who looks exhausted all the time, just trying to make it through each day too. They're two swimmers going under the waves right next to each other, but they can't rescue each other no matter how much they wish they could. Sometimes even just looking at the other one makes it that much harder to swim.

The first picture Chloe takes off the fridge is of her and her father and her cat. The cat that got killed by a car too. Fucking cars. Fucking accidents that just happen and there's nothing you can do to change it. She sits on her bed and holds the picture and wishes she could go back to that moment for ten seconds, just say "Dad, I love you" one more time. When she thinks about it, her throat constricts and feels like she can't breathe. Always drowning. And then, mercifully, a life preserver rises up from within her. A ring of rage that keeps her afloat. "Fuck this!" she thinks. "Fuck people dying. Fuck 'best friends' who abandon you." She puts the photo in a box and pushes it under her bed. "Fuck everything." Still the next night, she pulls it out and looks at it again.

*****

When Chloe thinks things can't get any worse, her mother sits her down at the table to talk about a man she's met. Chloe listens silently, in disgusted disbelief, as her mother talks about the need to move on in life, how we can't change the past or live in it, no matter how dearly we wish she could. "I know you can't understand," Joyce says. Chloe keeps her silence, but in her head she thinks things she wish she could stop herself from thinking: "You are so weak. You must have never really loved my father, because how could you do this NOW, if you ever did? Part of me hates you." Her eyes must reveal some of her thoughts, because Joyce can't maintain eye contact with her. "Chloe, I don't blame you for being angry."

Chloe stands up and says, "That's good. Because I'm right to be angry." She enunciates every syllable. "You . . ." Her insides are twisting with rage, but somehow she stops herself from saying all the words she would regret and just says, "I have nothing to say to you, and I sure as hell am never going to understand you." She walks over to the fridge and grabs the remaining photo of her and William off of it. "I still love you, Dad," she thinks. "I'll be loyal to you always." She takes the steps two at a time and slams her bedroom door.

*****

The first time Joyce brings David to the house, Chloe instantly hates him. She hates the way he looks, she hates his stupid voice. He hands her a skating magazine, and she considers it with disgust before dropping it on the table. The way she says "Thanks" clearly communicates "Fuck you." Her mother is talking, but she can't really hear her. "Your dinner's on the table." "Don't leave the house." "Call me if you need me." Chloe can't keep herself from snorting at that one. "I won't be late." When they go to leave for their "date" and David puts his hand on the small of her mother's back, Chloe feels like she dies a little inside. She clings to her life preserver of rage and heads up to her room.

But when she gets to the top of the steps, she doesn't go to her room. She goes to her mother's room. She goes to the chest of drawers where there is typically a photo of her parents. They're in San Francisco in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. They are young. Beautiful. In love. Her mom is pregnant with her. But the photo isn't there. Chloe's rage turns to white flames in her head. Where is it? She begins to search the room, and finally she sees it, face down on the bed. What the hell? Had her mother been looking at it? Whatever the reason, it just made Chloe angrier. Because everything made Chloe mad. She grabbed the photo and headed to her room. She fell asleep with it under her pillow.

*****

Chloe was awoken in the middle of the night by her mother. All she said was, "Where is it?" As Chloe wiped the sleep from her eyes, she saw that her mother had been crying. Still it didn't soften her feelings. "Where's what?" 

"Chloe Price, I know you are angry at me, and I am sorry, but that picture is mine." 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Chloe said petulantly.

Joyce sat on the edge of Chloe's bed and rested her head in her hands. They were both silent for what seemed like 15 minutes. Chloe's heart pounded in her chest, but she had nothing to say. She kept her head on her pillow and stared at the ceiling. Finally, it seemed that Joyce came to a decision in her mind. She said softly, "Chloe, I had a life I loved with all my heart. Even with everything that happened, I would never change a second of it. Here's the thing that's so unfair. I have you, and William is part of you. And you are left with me. And I'm just me. So, I want you to keep that photo. You are all I will ever need to remember and hold onto the life I had before." She put her hand on Chloe's leg, then stood up and left. When she was gone, Chloe turned over and cried into her pillow until she couldn't cry anymore. She fell asleep feeling like she could hardly breathe.

In the morning, she took the photo back to her mother's room and placed it on the side table on her mother's side of the bed. When she went downstairs, her mother was at the stove making pancakes. She went up behind her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders and gave her the briefest of hugs. She pulled away and said, "Just because I'm angry doesn't mean that I don't love you." Before her mother could respond, Chloe walked out the front door. That was all that she could give.

***** 

Life went on. Joyce married David, and Chloe hated it. Chloe made a close friend in a girl from school named Rachel Amber. She got tattoos, smoked pot, and generally decided to not give a shit about anything, except hanging out with Rachel. And then Rachel disappeared, left without saying a word. Sure, why not? The universe had so much hate to give. Bring it on, universe, Chloe thought. And fuck you, too.

And, then unbelievably, Max Caulfield came back into her life. With a literal bang. She got shot in the Blackwell bathroom, right in front of Chloe. Then shit got really weird. All the anger Chloe had felt somehow turned back to friendship. And then it started to turn into love. Like it was always supposed to happen. Like maybe Chloe's time in hell could finally be up for good. Maybe she could live in the sunlight again. Not like when she was a kid. She could never go all the way back to seeing life like that. Not after everything that had happened. But still, it could be good sometimes, not a nonstop shitstorm. 

*****

One morning soon after Max and she had turned from friends to lovers, Chloe was leaving her bedroom when her mother called out to her. "Chloe, can you please come in here?" Chloe rolled her eyes, and leaned in her mother's doorway, "What's up?"

"Come over here and sit on my bed."

Chloe sighed but complied. "Yeah, what?"

Joyce was sitting on her bed, still in her waitress uniform from her shift at the diner the night before. She held out a piece of paper that Chloe recognized with some embarrassment as a note she had tried to sneak into the outer pocket of Max's messenger bag the night before. It must have dropped out without her noticing. Who knows where? If she remembered correctly—and she did—it said, "Don't worry. I'll still kiss your beautiful clitoris every night even after we get married." Despite her best efforts, Chloe began to blush. "Uh . . ."

Joyce started to say, "You know I love Max. I can't imagine anyone better for you. I'm glad for both of you."

Chloe said, "Mom . . ." but she meant, "Oh God, please stop."

"And I know a little note like this doesn't necessarily mean anything . . ." 

"Oh my God, Mom . . ." Chloe sighed with exasperation as she reached for the note.  


"But you two are way too young to be talking about marriage. If you really are. You know Max is going to go to college . . ." And suddenly, Chloe was angry. She stood up.

"You know, I expect Max's mom to think I'm not good enough for her daughter. But you too?!"

"Chloe, I am not saying that. Would you actually listen to me for once?"

"So what are you saying?"

"I am saying I don't want you to get hurt. Either one of you, but especially you. Because you are my daughter. You are my priority." She paused for a second, then continued, "I know how it is when you fall in love with your best friend. How intense it can be. How amazing it can be."

Chloe wasn't even sure what was compelling her, but the next thing she knew, she was reaching in the top drawer of the dresser. The place where the photo of her mother and father in San Francisco had ended up after her mother married David. She pulled it out. She was overcome by emotion, and she couldn't even understand why.

She held the photo out. "This is me and Max. Do you get that? This is us. We're going to make it work. This is us forever. This is us forever!"

But suddenly Chloe knew she wasn't just talking about herself and Max, even though she was talking about them too. Chloe turned the picture toward herself, but she couldn't really focus on it, because tears were starting to run from her eyes. She said to herself, "This is us forever." Maybe Max and she were destined to be a family. She hoped so. She believed that they were. But this picture was her family too, forever. She was clutching the picture and she was crying. And then her mom was standing and hugging her tight, saying, "I know. Chloe, I know."

With one hand Chloe pressed the photo to her chest, and with the other arm she embraced her mother like she hadn't done in years. Inside she felt like she was breaking and healing at the same time. It felt like one love had opened her heart to another for the first time in . . . forever. She gulped in the air and held her mother tight.

**Author's Note:**

> For a happier, Pricefield tale, you can check out my story Max Caulfield's Favorite Room.


End file.
